My only argument would be that you could take the money that you're paying on the loan and put it into the interest earning checking account and earn money on that money rather than paying money for that money.
Sure, but he'd have to reduce his balance in the interest earning account by half, thus losing half his interest immediately. Assuming the student loan has a 10-15 year amortization schedule, he would not reach the same level of savings in the interest earning account for 9-14 years (assuming he was putting in the payment he was making on the SL).
This strategy would result in a net loss compared with simply keeping his savings where they are and paying the scheduled payments.